I still think there are plenty of great sounding records coming out today but they aren't at the top of the promo echelon.

Yeah. Even albums like last year's release by Bill Callahan were great sounding, but I don't think that it went much past his core audience or past the indie rock scene. Justin Currie's "What Is Love For" and "The Great War" sound great, but I don't think that many people heard it outside of his core audience, either.

+1 On Bill Callahan Album one of my Fave's. so good in fact I bought it both on CD and vinyl.

The song All thoughts are prey to some beasts is near perfection in every way for me.

Gotta go find this Bill Callahan stuff immediately. I live spiritually through about 6 or 10 records a year and the searching has gotten to be qute a task.

I'm streaming again from npr the new Blonde Redhead, mixed by Alan Moulder. Perfect Sunday morning record and the new Interpol is streaming too if you google 'new interpol record' its about the 8'th thing down with an interveiw with Paul and 'why they are happy Carlos D left' in the description.

I think it's great. Sounds like an all grown up Interpol and Pauls lyrics are more honest then veiled metaphors.

Also, I'll restate it (self plug?) that if you go to half.com (which is part of ebay) you can get both of Ebeling Hughes records and the Downtown digipak record with the naked women painting by Klimt for about $2/each.

YES! In that interview and others she talks about recording and leaving the ambience and warts and everything in there. I couldn't agree more.

I got a record to mix a few weeks ago and the harddrive came with about 24 pages of notes for things they wanted on each song. I didn't toss the notes in the garbage, but I filed them and haven't read them.

People need to stop editing the life out of their tracks. I'm trying to mix these 60 plus track records like they are done live and that's kinda my little contribution on trying to get things back to life here. It doesn't apply to everything but with experience as an engineer you end up seeing that you're really just trying to get things to sound like they probably did or ultimately would in a dream perfect concert scenario.

Another Rachel vid: The tones are enough for me to keep listening over and over. This is a great record on a big level and I'm sure it never touched billboard.

and...if anyone missed PJ Harvey's 'White Chalk' record.........witness what Flood does with a handfull of sm58's, a couple cmv-563's, a mackie mixer and an artist who once toured with U2 but went back to making music that doesn't allow you to tour with U2.

People need to stop editing the life out of their tracks. I'm trying to mix these 60 plus track records like they are done live and that's kinda my little contribution on trying to get things back to life here. It doesn't apply to everything but with experience as an engineer you end up seeing that you're really just trying to get things to sound like they probably did or ultimately would in a dream perfect concert scenario.

What exactly are on those tracks? Do they have a whole bunch of different snares/ hi hats, guitars? When I record things, rarely do I need to mix something out--usually some parts are just triple/ quad tracked--they're not extremely different in timbre, but the main parts and counterpoint harmonies are all huge sounding because there's tons of tracks playing the same thing or generally the same thing. If you don't know what you want to nail when you're recording it, to me, it's like a movie director trying 50 different angles and then hoping the editor makes something good of it....problem is, the editor isn't the guy that should have the vision or bring the vision together.

I don't want to set up any hard rules or act like I dictate anything for a band, all I'm saying is preproduction.

Back in the days and the further back you go, the more limited the options were the more the music had to be rehearsed and well written first. I think there are a lot of results from the 50's, 60's, and 70's that far outweigh the results we are getting now with this billion track recorder under every roof method.

Hi guys, thanks again for the replies and encouragement thru this thread. I wanted to mention that we have gone ahead and posted about 50 videos that show alot of the Ebeling Hughes live and studio ramblings in the 1990's on Youtube.

Though not yet titled correctly, if you go to this link and then click on the extended offering of videos from MunroviaPictures right where it says '136 videos'-- you will see about 40 of the new EH ones loaded. Some very cool early 90's studio stuff from when we were cutting our records.

Now things are properly titled on Youtube. You can go there, enter Ebeling Hughes, and basically watch some guys go from their parents barns and sheds right into building really cool studios from like 1993 until 1999. 4-tracks to 3m79 24 tracks in less than 3 years! Now that was progress!

I don't have the time right now Bob, but i'll definetely look into all this stuff quite soon! What I like about what i've heard of the Ebeling Hughes stuff, is that it's not slavishly shoegaze--alot of bands and artists haven't aged well because they were doing everything that they could to fit into the parameters of what they thought that encompassed. The best band in that whole movement, to me, was Spiritualized, because they broke all the rules on "Ladies And Gentlemen...".

Eons ago I had a stint as a hired hand in a band back in the 'good old days' which was on Polydor in the USA & got to witness all kinds of Major label World machinations as a fly on the wall - made me make a mental note to do things as an indie/DIY if I'd ever release my own music.

Some years later a prospective label A&R person who wanted me to remix an entire album because he thought the hihat level was too low, cemented the deal.

So I commenced DIY in '95, set up deals in Europe, Asia, USA etc. Had, in retrospect a few lucky breaks with timing & zeitgeist. It was ok when the discs flew out the door by the truckload & I was getting paid. I thought it would never end!

Then it got a lot less fun when the record biz collapse began to take place & much of my energy it seemed went into coordination, administration, shipping & receiving etc. For a dwindling return. That combined with the Kafkaesque iron clog of the Dutch State & tax office constantly stomping me into oblivion with absurd pressures like trying to make one man music guy operating an 'official' business submit a yearly business administration done to the same standard and guidelines of say Philips or KLM.

One day I realized that 1 part music equaled 2-3 parts unsavory office serf work for me & I began to associate, in a Pavlovian way, what I previously loved (music) with something highly unpleasant.

A cautionary tale!

Fwiw - the upkeep & maintenance on studio stuff, while sometimes inconvenient, didn't overwhelm me too much as I felt it ultimately helped me to become a better engineer & understand what was under the chassis of the boxes with knobs & coloured lights.

compasspnt wrote on Fri, 27 August 2010 18:21

bob ebeling wrote on Fri, 27 August 2010 11:47

I really wonder how much further I would have made it as an artist, which was at one time my sole aspiration. As equipment entered the picture to get the art made, even in 1992, buying a 16 track for 5 grand, the stress of being a studio operator started to directly take away this free and always writing guy and turn him into an always thinking about money and gear guy.

There was a direct effect where gear, in my case, wrecked (erased?, slowly turned away?) an artist. Now, that was my choice and there have been hundreds of great things that have come from going the gear way, but could I have been that great artist who today would be sitting in Scotland, drinking a Guinness and scribbling lyric ideas on napkins while trying not to let those 4 girls in the corner recognize who I am?

I think if I had to do it all again, I might not have ever bought that 16 track in 1992 and rather put all that time and effort into rehearsing a band, writing songs, and spending more time in Jamaica...but who's to say?

This is an EXTREMELY important point.

There is something in the "creative spirit mindset" that does NOT like the intrusion of business ideals.

That's one reason a good band manager is so important. Sometimes there is one band member who can take on the basic responsibilities (often the bass player for some reason?), but so so many musicians just plain do not want to do "the business thing."

This is yet another reason that the music business today, wherein a band or single artist is almost expected to write the songs, book the gigs, handle the merch, collect the money, record the demos (or worse, MASTERS) in their own house on their own recording system, drive their own van, load their own gear, design their own album cover, market themselves extensively, call David Letterman's booker, etc....is causing a DEARTH of truly creative flow.

And the WORST thing, I have seen it several times, is when a band or artist decides to "put in their own high end studio." Can it work...yes, it might. Will it work? Likely it will diminish the creative juices as the focus is diverted towards day to day business ideals.

Yes, on the other hand is the fact that in today's "artistically democratic" world, there are more chances to record oneself, more opportunities to go worldwide, than ever.

This particular song was done in my Brooklyn apartment. Unlike most closet style apartments in NYC, I was very lucky to find a four bedroom exquisite place off of the Ft. Hamilton Parkway stop of the F. Huge open rooms built in the 1940's...gotta love it!

So my main gear in this place was a pair of pair of V76/80. A black face rev d 1176. An LA-2A. A Lang PEQ-2. Mics included a U47, a couple UM-57's, km 84's, Schoeps 221b's, and more of the usual suspects.

The drum machine is a real deal Roland 808. I love that thing so much. Samples never come close to the life that is inside that machine.

I had just lucked across the Sesame Street Minimoog, bought straight from the origional music maker from that show. He gave me his book with all the patches notated ('cookie monsters diabete's shock', 'count's moment of ecstacy', etc... haha).

So this particular song started off with alot of synth and 808, just to get some chords happening. Everything else was built up from there, but 90% of the song was done in an afternoon.

When it came time to do the vocals I had a big doubt on whether or not I should keep the very first chord of the verse as the c# (?) which actually never appeared again in the sequence. Good buddy and audio-ologist Paul Logus talked me into keeping it.

THe 'Downtown' record went on to be one of the coolest things you've never heard. Flood and Alan Moulder came on board towards the end to help me straighten out a few of the songs in london.

If you are into heartbreak, substance influenced sounds (haha), and general shoegaze via Beatles production then go find a copy of this (someone still has it on I-tunes under my stage name 'Robert Kaeding' or 'Downtown') OR better yet, put it out on your own label! I still own 100% of the record, publishing and all.

Look on Half.com, they usually have a bunch of copies under 'Downtown digipak'

I did make the record on 2" machines blended with Protools, using some of the best studios in NYC and some of the best gear on the planet so it is a fun listen, and like I say, if you've just been thru a divorce, you just might worship this slab!

Nice job Bob, congratulations. Cut listening to The Blue Nile a bit for a while for the remainder of the work, though

I don't want to set up any hard rules or act like I dictate anything for a band, all I'm saying is preproduction.

Back in the days and the further back you go, the more limited the options were the more the music had to be rehearsed and well written first. I think there are a lot of results from the 50's, 60's, and 70's that far outweigh the results we are getting now with this billion track recorder under every roof method.

I'm noticing that bands may be overprepared these days...their parts overthought and set in stone before even setting foot in the basement....errr....studio

I'm starting to like not doing any prepro...and trying to discover as we go...because more often than not what I think will sound right in the rehearsal room, doesn't translate to the recording...of course this only works with musician's that are actually musician's.. a lot of bands don't like this idea initially as it is unheard of territory these days....much like no click...but I would say that those 50's and 60's recordings may be the result of a more spontaneous approach.

Charles Hughes and I wanted to create a studio of all glitchy and malfunctioning gear. We worked almost how you described...first take only and never really knowing where we were going until we got there.

I find preproduction really important with bands though, even if it's just me attending a few rehearsals, making notes and discussing. Gets me prepared for the personalities and gear I'll be micing too. This can help to flush out poor arrangements beforehand also.